


Tea in the TARDIS

by platoapproved



Category: Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Adorable, Domestic, Fluff, Gen, Superfluous in every way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-12
Updated: 2011-03-12
Packaged: 2017-11-08 09:46:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/441868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/platoapproved/pseuds/platoapproved
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor and Charley make C'rizz drink a cup of tea for the first time. Set after Caerdroia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tea in the TARDIS

**Author's Note:**

> This is set after the audio 'Caerdroia' and thus contains spoilers for it and the Divergent Universe arc in general.

“Oh, C’rizz, you’ll  _love_  it,” the Doctor exclaimed, rolling his shoulders so that his cloak slipped off. When he tossed it at a random angle, Charley lurched two long strides to the left and caught it deftly before it hit the TARDIS floor.   
  
“Brava,” murmured C’rizz warmly, with a hint of sarcasm. Charley could tell that, despite her reassurances, he was still worried about the Doctor, worried that the Time Lord hasn’t fully recovered from being split in three. She couldn’t see what he was complaining about — at least he hadn’t gotten stuck with the version of the Doctor whose words dripped venom, who was cold and manipulative and short-tempered. A side of the Doctor that she’d come to know all too well, since they came to this universe.   
  
It hadn’t been until then, right then as they crossed the threshold of the TARDIS, that Charley realized how little the Doctor had been acting like his old self, since Gallifrey and the business with Zagreus. She’d almost forgotten he could be like this, childish and bright-cheeked, rolling up his sleeves to make tea. The TARDIS kitchen was filled with noise as the Doctor clambered atop counters to reach down his best china, rattling with what looked like an old gas stove and slopping water on the floor in his haste to fill the kettle.   
  
“What did you say the qualities of this — uh — ‘tea’ are, Charlotte?” C’rizz was amicably wary, wide-eyed and subdued as he tried to adjust to the soft humming of the time ship, the weird feeling of the TARDIS’ telepathic circuits touching the edges of his consciousness, polite but ever-present. Could Charley not feel it, he wondered? He’d only been in the ship a manner of minutes (it was so strange, these new words his friends were teaching him, this concept of  _time_ ) and already he could feel its — her, the presence nudged — _her_  hostility towards the woman.   
  
A column of steam began to rise from the kettle, and C’rizz did his best not to wince at the shrill shrieking it let out.   
  
“It’s broken,” he pointed out, and Charley couldn’t help but laugh at his earnestness. He frowned at her, his skin shifting to an indignant pale turquoise.   
  
“It’s supposed to do that,” she told him. The Doctor was humming to himself, oblivious to their conversation, shuffling his feet on the floor in an almost-dance. C’rizz crossed his arms, watched him brew the tea. He portioned out some white powder and added it to the 3 small pools of darkening liquid. He added a white liquid to two of the cups before he stopped, muttering something that sounded like,  _yes yes yes of course probably lactose intolerant, best not_ . He recognized those words.   
  
“You said that earlier, with the cows.” His look of mild suspicion shifted to deep distrust, his skin blossoming into a deep violet color, “Is that … juice from a cow?”   
  
There was no hope for it now. Charley was howling with laughter, bent double, wiping tears from the corners of her eyes, and what was worse was that she got the Doctor going, as well. C’rizz shifted his weight between his feet — he wasn’t accustomed to being  _laughed_  at: he was a monk of the Church of the Foundation!    
  
“Someday,” the Doctor said, a grin stretching from ear to ear, “I will explain mammalian lactation to you. But! You haven’t tried your tea! You must!” He caught up one of the cups and saucers, forcing it into C’rizz’s hands with hasty delight. The Eutermasen took it quickly and, keenly aware of the two sets of eyes fixed on him, took a sip.   
  
“BISCUITS!” The Doctor burst, so loudly that C’rizz jumped almost a foot in the air and tea slopped over the side of his cup, pooling in the saucer. “Yes, of course, I think I left some in the library, I wonder if they’re still–” the Doctor skipped out of the room, his words fading out of earshot as he turned the corner.   
  
“Charlotte,” C’rizz said with all the patience he could muster. She was still sniggering, her own teacup clasped in her hands with practiced precision, dainty and decorous. “Please stop it.”   
  
“Sorry,” she apologized, not sounding sorry in the least. There was a muffled crash, a  _flump_ , and the sound of the Doctor yelping. Then his laugh, distinctive, high-pitched and gleeful, followed, C’rizz thought, by a faint cry of  _these aren’t biscuits!_  At the edges of his mind, he thought he heard the smallest of sighs from the ship: an affectionate, exasperated, inorganic exhalation.   
  
“How do you like it?” Charley asked, peering at him over her own cup. She was different too, he thought, in this ship. Would he ever get used to it, this reading of faces, this constant struggle of guessing what color she should be at the moment?   
  
“It’s repulsive,” he said, with a weary smile. He tried another sip, a disgusted flush of orange running outward from his mouth.   
  
“Well, you shouldn’t let the Doctor know that,” Charley said, half-joking, half-serious, “He’ll be heartbroken.”   
  
“Maybe I’ll get used to it,” C’rizz said with a nod, “Until then, um’s the word.”   
  
Charley thought C’rizz should appreciate the great amount of effort it took her, not to laugh at him again. “Mum,” she said.   
  
“What?”   
  
“Mum’s the word.”   
  
“Yes, I said that.”   
  
“Seal up your lips and give no words but mum,” said the Doctor from the doorway, and this time, both companions were startled, “Henry the VIth. Act two, I believe. Old Billy Shakespeare. Remember Shakespeare, Charley? And the Daleks? C’rizz, of course, we’ll have to take you to see a play, once we’re back in our universe. What do you think, Charley?  _Much Ado About Nothing_ ,  _Romeo and Juliet_ ? Or something grander,  _King Lear_ ,  _Othello_ ,  _Hamlet_ ,  _The Tempest_ !” He was spinning again, fetching small plates and placing morsels of food on them.   
  
“ _Chocolate_ ,” C’rizz thought that Charlotte moaned the word rather as though she were seeing a long-lost friend again.   
  
“Try them!” the Doctor urged C’rizz.   
  
As he watched Charlotte eating the brown-and-tan squares with exaggerated relish, C’rizz wondered how long it would be like this: the two of them, brimming with happiness, overeager to introduce him to alien foods and alien entertainments, things of which he had never even dreamed. The novelty of his ignorance would wear off, just as the novelty of things like tea and chocolate had worn off for Charlotte and the Doctor long ago. They were rediscovering these simple things through his eyes, but soon they would be taking them for granted again. Soon enough, if the TARDIS did manage to break through into the other universe, they would tire of C’rizz not knowing the most basic of information, and then where would he be? He was already an outlier, already felt superfluous to the two of them here in his own universe. Nothing to stay for, here, no chance of ever fully integrating himself there.   
  
The humming of the ship seemed to intensify. In his mind, not so much in words as in colours, he sensed the TARDIS’ reassurance, a pale but luminescent green. Another new word he had learned from the Doctor — the future. He was worrying about things yet to come, and for now, there was nothing he could do.   
  
Charley and the Doctor were both looking at him again, waiting on him to move, to participate. “Which one?” he asked, a hand hovering indecisively over the array. There were easily a dozen different varieties.   
  
“ALL OF THEM!” they cried, in perfect unison.


End file.
